What are the most compelling reports?

I have been on this board since last July, and also doing a substantial amount of research elsewhere.

To expand my perspective further, I would like to ask others here what you consider to be the most effective reports/facts/statements to present a convincing case to a group of very influential business leaders. I need to distill all of the many reports and articles down to the three most compelling reports that demonstrate the need to prepare for all contingencies.

Don't send me back to the archives. Been there, done that. I have my opinions already. It is YOUR evaluation of the multitude of articles that is sought... particularly in light of the many recent conflicting and whitewashing efforts of federal and economic leaders (ie.: Dodd, Bennet and Yardeni on Farce The Nation).

Please, be my think-tank and give me your top picks.

Many thanks, Sara

need to distill all of the many reports and articles down to the three most compelling reports that demonstrate the need to prepare for all contingencies.

Answers

Ms. Neeley, Probably the most influential reports to me would be the Internal Auditor's report on the USPO, The GAO reports (recent) regarding the government's readiness and on which Mr. Horn based his report card, and potentially the Senate report due out tomorrow. I regret to say that most reports are significant for what they DON'T say as opposed to actual content. I certainly would not include any commentary from GN or other like minded sources. I guarantee you will be labeled a "kook" like the rest of us.

Take a look at the 50-odd page FEMA document prepared as a checklist
for state and local emergency managers. You can find it in PDF format
on the FEMA webpage at http://www.fema.gov. It is presented in a low-
key fashion but anyone who can read the lines, or between the lines,
will come away with a "prepare for the worst, hope for the best"
reaction. Keep in mind this is written for the people who are most
responsible for "taking care of" us, the general(ly dumb) public, in
emergency situations.

I look forward to seeing the Senate committee report but wouldn't be
surprised if it never materialized.

A report on the Year 2000 computer problem prepared by a special
Senate panel warns that a number of foreign countries and U.S.
economic sectors, especially the health care industry, appear at
significant risk for technological failures and business disruptions.

The report, scheduled for release this week by Sens. Robert F.
Bennett (R-Utah) and Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), includes a letter
to Senate colleagues describing the problem of computers' ability to
recognize dates starting on Jan. 1, 2000, popularly known as Y2K, as
a "worldwide crisis" and as "one of the most serious and potentially
devastating events this nation has ever encountered."

The prospect of widespread computer glitches and lobbying by industry
groups have galvanized bipartisan groups in the Senate and House to
press for legislation protecting companies that fail to deliver goods
and services on time because of Y2K problems.

Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) estimated yesterday there might be $1
trillion in lawsuits filed because of the glitch and urged adoption
of an industry-backed House bill to allay "a great deal of fear
regarding out-of-control litigation."

A draft copy of the Senate report, provided by staff aides to The
Washington Post, describes in vivid detail the scope of the potential
Y2K problem and the frustrations that Senate investigators
encountered as they tried to gather information from industries
reluctant to describe what progress they have made in fixing computer
and telecommunication systems.

But the report represents the most comprehensive assessment of the
Y2K problem to appear as companies and governments scramble to fix
their computer systems. In addition to health care, the report
portrays the oil, education, farming, food processing and
construction sectors as seriously lagging on computer repairs.

Among the report's findings: More than 90 percent of doctors' offices
and 50 percent of small- and medium-sized companies have not
addressed the Y2K problem; telephone systems are expected to operate;
and planes will not fall out of the sky. The Senate panel also
worries that communities will not be able to provide "911" and other
emergency services.

Even though governments and corporations have mobilized technology
staffs and consultants to sift through millions of lines of software
code looking for Y2K glitches, the 161-page draft also underscores
how little experts know about the potential impact of the so-called
millennium bug.

"The interdependent nature of technology systems makes the severity
of possible disruptions difficult to predict. Adding to the
confusion, there are still very few overall Year 2000 technology
compliance assessments of infrastructure or industry sectors.
Consequently, the fundamental questions of risk and personal
preparedness cannot be answered at this time," the draft said.

Clinton administration officials have portrayed the Y2K problem as
similar to a severe winter snowstorm that causes inconveniences but
little lasting harm. Yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan
Greenspan assured Americans that they can keep their money in the
bank over New Year's 2000 without fear.

"There's almost no conceivable way . . . that computers will break
down and records of people's savings accounts would disappear," he
told the Senate Banking Committee.

Still, almost all government agencies are drawing up emergency plans,
including the Fed, which plans to stockpile an extra $200 billion in
cash for banks, about a third more than usual.

The Senate report, which grew out of a series of hearings last year
by the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem,
concludes "that the biggest Y2K impact will occur internationally."

Two important trading partners, Japan and Venezuela, seem to have
miscalculated the time and money needed to fix the computer glitch,
according to the draft report.

Relying on surveys by consultants, the report suggests that Japan
"may have underestimated the resources needed to address the
problem," noting that major Japanese banks have indicated far lower
repair costs than U.S. banks.

Venezuela and Saudi Arabia lag from a year to 18 months behind the
United States in Y2K preparations, raising concerns about the
availability of oil and other critical imports, the report said.

International ports are widely described as far behind in their Y2K
efforts, prompting worries that the maritime industry will face
shipping problems that could interrupt commerce, the report added.

International aviation and foreign airports also appear at risk, and
"flight rationing to some areas and countries is possible," the
report said.

Overall, the report said, "the least-prepared countries are those
that depend heavily on foreign investment and multinational companies
to supplement their economies. Panic over Y2K concerns may cause
investors to withdraw financial support. Lack of confidence in a
country's infrastructure could cause multinational companies to close
their operations."

[snip]

In assessing U.S. preparedness, the draft report reserved some of its
strongest language for the health care industry, concluding it "is
one of the worst-prepared for Y2K and carries a significant potential
for harm."

The industry relies on computers for patient treatment, insurance
claims and pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution. While large
hospitals are pushing to fix their computers, the report described
hospital management as "playing a catch-up game."

Many hospitals are relying solely on medical device manufacturers to
certify products as Y2K-compliant, which the report said "could be a
serious mistake."

The report cited rural and inner-city hospitals as at special risk
because they do not have the staff or money to find and fix Y2K
glitches.

In an effort to head off a potential avalanche of lawsuits caused by
Y2K glitches, a bipartisan group of House members yesterday
introduced a bill to address litigation issues. Sen. John McCain (R-
Ariz.) has introduced a similar bill, and Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (R-
Utah) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) plan to announce their version
today.

Although the House bill has the support of major business
organizations, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), the measure's
principal author, stressed that the measure was "pro-consumer"
because it will "encourage businesses to come in and fix their
problems."

The Year 2000 Readiness and Responsibility Act would require
plaintiffs to give notice to potential defendants about their
difficulties, wait 30 days for a response and give the defendant an
additional 60 days to fix a glitch before suing.

Under the bill, plaintiffs may recover actual damages, but punitive
damages would be capped.

Despite several years of warnings about the Year 2000 Bug and more
than $1 billion already spent to fix it, much of the hard work
required to make sure Y2K doesn't create Y2-chaos across the Chicago
area has been left for the final 365 days.

Water purification plants and pumping stations in Chicago and the
suburbs have not yet been checked to make sure their electronic
controls will operate on Jan. 1, 2000.

Local hospitals don't yet know which defibrillators can be relied on
to save heart attack victims, which intravenous pumps will let
medicine flow, and whether thousands of other medical devices will
work.

The Chicago Transit Authority isn't finished looking at what devices
need to be replaced to keep trains rattling along.

Although Commonwealth Edison has largely determined which of its
systems would not function properly in 2000, the utility has finished
just a fraction of the repairs needed to keep the grid juiced up.

As of November, only 20 percent of Illinois cities and villages had
taken an inventory of the kind of computerized systems that are
needed to keep local infrastructures and governments working but
could fail at the dawn of the new millennium.

Because computers and microchips that might fail 12 months from now
are embedded in countless devices hard-wired into the infrastructure
of modern life, the Y2K Bug is much more than just a computer or
software problem.

The inability of some computers and electronics with "embedded chips"
to cope with a date that ends in 00 has grown into an electricity
problem, a train problem, a bank problem, a factory problem.

Many of the problems already have been solved. But even those, hidden
away in odd places, only serve to give a hint of the many more
problems that have not yet been found.

"Anyone who says they are ahead of the game on embedded (chips) is
lying," said Liz Fieweger, who is heading the City of Chicago's hunt
for microchips that will stop working in 2000. "The whole world
should have been doing this two years ago.

"In some ways, we are behind. But everybody is."

She and most others fighting the Millennium Bug say they still have
time to snuff it out, that firefighters will have the water to fight
fires and 911 systems will alert police to emergencies. Armies of
workers and consultants are looking for the chips, analyzing them and
hoping to have testing done by summer.

But even the most optimistic concede that the next three or four
months will be critical in determining whether the job is finished by
year-end.

Reasonable estimates of the potential havoc next year run from a
minor inconvenience that slows traffic at a busy intersection to
economic chaos that sparks a world recession. Most experts imagine
something in between and surely closer to inconvenience.

"There's still time, but quite frankly, we've got to get started,"
said Randall von Liski, manager of the state's Y2K Technology Task
Force.

Ultimately, though, because it's impossible to know if every
critical, vulnerable device has been found, the unknowns about Y2K
will linger right up until clocks around the world start striking
midnight on New Year's Eve, 1999.

Based on the current state of readiness, experts say 1999 should be
the year of contingency planning. Businesses and governments need to
realistically assess which systems they'll be able to fix in time,
then make plans for how to cope should any of the rest go awry.

"For people who are getting started now, yes, there is a problem,"
said Priscilla Walter, an information technology attorney with
Gardner, Carton & Douglas. "And they will have potential legal
liability to the extent that they don't do it in a systematic way."

For those who think the bug is so much techno-malarkey, consider
this: The top 25 companies in Chicago combined expect to spend more
than $1.8 billion to keep the problem at bay. For the City of
Chicago, the bill will reach $52 million; for the State of Illinois,
it's $114.5 million.

Although many of the replacement systems will be more efficient than
the old models, shareholders and taxpayers generally will get little
more than the status quo for all that spending.

The good news is that consumers won't have to directly spend much, if
anything. The vast majority of the electronics in the home and under
the hood of the car have no known Y2K problems.

Chip hunt

Elsewhere, though, glitchy chips capable of creating electronic
mischief are indeed turning up. By most estimates, about 5 percent of
the chips embedded in all sorts of devices will malfunction on Jan.
1, 2000, if they are not replaced.

And they are being found in the most unlikely places.

Nearly half of the 600 Breathalyzers used by police departments
across Illinois to identify drunken drivers have a Y2K-incompatible
chip in their electrical innards that would render their printouts
unusable in court. The glitch, of course, would have surfaced just at
the moment that champagne corks were popping beneath cheers of "Happy
New Year!"

The University of Chicago Hospitals discovered its pneumatic tube
system, which whooshes blood and tissue samples around the sprawling
complex, needed to be replaced to keep it working in 2000. "It would
have choked," said spokesman John Easton.

Computer screens attached to each of the 300 manufacturing robots at
Ford's South Side assembly plant would have reverted to gibberish if
technicians there hadn't discovered that a single chip in each one
was not Y2K compliant.

They found and fixed the problems, of course, because they looked.

Ultimately, beating the technology epoch's greatest and most exotic
snafu boils down to an exercise in taking good inventory. Solving the
Y2K problem requires finding every potentially vulnerable device,
figuring out who made it, then asking the manufacturer if it was
tested to see if it would work past 2000.

But that's harder than it sounds.

"We don't know how many embedded chips there are," said Elizabeth
Boatman, the Y2K boss for Chicago. "We know what machines we have,
but they don't come with a label that says, `This has a chip in it.'
You have to guess."

And the tedious and time-consuming process of finding these embedded
chips and determining if they will operate is just beginning in many
places, especially in the public sector.

Many businesses are months, even a year or more, ahead of many
governments.

Navistar International Corp., for example, has completed the analysis
of 247 suspect devices in its engine building plant in Melrose Park.
The company is well along in replacing the 29 units that had
problems, including a computer that tested the emissions of every
engine built there, according to Jim Schlusesmann, director of
technical systems at the plant.

The Cook County Bureau of Health Services, on the other hand, has a
long way to go at its three hospitals, including County Hospital. The
bureau has 20,000 electronic devices that should be checked. Because
that job is too big to finish in the time remaining, the county has
triaged that number down to the 3,000 most important devices to check
now.

A ventilator needed to keep someone alive must be checked before a
mammogram machine, according to county records.

So far, the bureau has contacted just half of the manufacturers of
its most critical devices and has heard back from only about 10
percent of those, according to county records.

While looking for these embedded chips, technicians also have to deal
with the problem of rewriting computer software. Although this part
of the Y2K problem has been understood longer, some government
agencies also are behind here too.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, lagging
behind all other state agencies, has 48 people working full time
rewriting its computer programs and needs to hire 10 more.

Those workers just finished fixing its most critical system, one that
tracks child abuse and neglect cases, by painstakingly scouring
245,348 lines of computer code and rewriting nearly 37,000 of them.
The agency doesn't hope to finish all of its 39 important systems
until late summer, though.

Agencies around Chicago are beginning to develop contingency plans in
case the bug causes real trouble.

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, for example, has
determined it can go to manual collections at all booths if its I-
Pass system shuts down.

Metra has canceled all vacations in December 1999 for personnel in
the commuter rail's operations and safety areas.

And like many municipalities, Des Plaines is buying an electric
generator for City Hall in case of a Y2K blackout.

Water, power and gas

Ask Chicago's Y2K boss what single issue worries her most, and she'll
answer in a snap.

"Water."

Chicago's water purification plants not only serve millions of people
in the city, but pipe drinking water from Lake Michigan to dozens of
suburbs as far away as DuPage and Will Counties.

Pumping, filtration and chlorination is governed by systems built
years ago and controlled in part by equipment that contains embedded
microchips.

"It is the only place where we have process-control equipment, and
that is an area of the biggest problems," Elizabeth Boatman said.

It wasn't until mid-December that Chicago hired the consulting
company to go in and inventory the devices at the city's filtration
plants and 12 pumping stations.

According to the work plan, the consultants are to finish their
inventory and analysis in March. Only then will it be clear how big
or small the problem really is.

Some parts of the drinking water system are beyond the control of the
City of Chicago, however.

Oak Lawn, for example, operates a pumping station that distributes
water from Chicago to nine other suburbs. That pumping station has
pressure monitors known to have a Y2K problem, and consultants will
begin working on it in late January, said Oak Lawn village officials.

Because it takes electricity to purify water, the City of Chicago is
shopping for back-up generators.

"We want to order that now," Boatman said. "I think everybody is
going to want one, and we don't think the manufacturers can supply
everybody."

Indeed, most everyone recognizes that keeping the electricity grid
juiced up is the single most important step in preventing widespread
problems a year from now.

The North American Electric Reliability Council noted in a September
report to the U.S. Department of Energy that because each power
company is connected to its neighbor, "the overall system may only be
as strong as the weakest link."

"Will the lights go out?" the report asked. "The answer is that no
one knows for certain yet what the effects of Y2K will be."

For their part, Commonwealth Edison officials say they will be ready
by July.

To get there, though, the company still has plenty to do. ComEd has
completed just 13 percent of the repairs needed to systems with
embedded chip problems, according to company publications.

In one especially topsy-turvy twist from Y2K, nuclear power plants,
some of the most complex machines around, are turning out to be
relatively free of Y2K Bugs.

ComEd had previously planned to fix Y2K problems at eight of its
reactors by next summer and wait to update the remaining two. But
company officials now say Y2K problems are so minor that all will be
fixed by mid-year.

Nicor Gas continues searching its system for any millennium glitch
that could cut the flow of natural gas but hasn't yet found anything
that substantial, company officials say.

Beyond the Chicago suburbs lie seven mammoth, buried sandstone rock
formations into which Nicor pumps huge quantities of natural gas each
summer for use the following winter. Those storage fields are filled
and emptied by giant turbines governed by controllers that have
microchips in them--microchips the company still is assessing for
susceptibility to the Y2K Bug.

Nicor also is concerned about the telecommunications network needed
to dispatch repair crews.

"What if the communication isn't out there?" said Jean Davis, who has
headed up the company's Y2K efforts. "What are we going to do? Are we
going to depend on radio? Are we going to drive information around?
We haven't detailed all that yet."

Fred Kowitz, Ameritech's Year 2000 director, said his firm has
participated in 1,500 tests sponsored by a telecommunications
industry group and found only seven minor glitches.

"We don't expect anything to happen," Kowitz said.

Jail doors and defibrillators

Will County has learned the hard way that Y2K problems have made
their way into law enforcement and public safety.

In the course of installing a new $5.3 million radio system over the
last year, officials discovered it would not function in 2000.

It had never occurred to anyone to put Y2K compliance into the bid
specifications.

"I don't think anybody knew about what Y2K meant at that time," said
Will County Sheriff Brendan Ward, who chaired the committee that
picked the system in 1996. "Who paid attention back then? Computer
geeks."

Still under warranty, the system is now being updated by the company.

Will County also has Y2K problems at the jail. The aging system for
locking nearly 300 cells and security doors would likely fail in
2000, requiring guards to use keys to open cells manually, officials
said.

"If we had an incident within a cellblock--say, a fire--it would take
a lot longer to get the cell door open with keys," Ward said. "I just
hope they get it done by next year."

The request for bids to do the repair work went out in December.

Rockford police found that their 34 on-board, squad car computers
would fail and must be replaced. More surprisingly, though, was the
discovery that one of the department's two Breathalyzers would spit
out inaccurate times and dates come the new millennium.

"We're just going to throw out the old one and get a new one," said
Jim Coffey, Rockford's data processing manager.

There are an additional 275 Intoximeter 3000s in the state that some
local police departments might not yet realize need replacing,
according to Larry Etzkorn, who heads the inspection of the devices
for the state's Department of Public Health.

The machines can be found in police departments from Evergreen Park
to Harwood Heights, Orland Park to Bensenville. Chicago police have
about 30 of them, at least one in each district.

Because the reports would be inaccurate, they would have to be
supported in court by expert testimony about why the machine failed.

Etzkorn said the state is awaiting word on a possible federal grant
that might pay for the machines before contacting all the local
departments.

In Chicago, Police and Fire Department officials don't yet know how
much of their equipment could cause problems in 2000.

Police radios, computers and 911 equipment are fine, officials say.
The consultant who will answer questions about much of the other
equipment the forces use was hired in mid-December.

The Fire Department's 83 ambulances, 130 pumpers and 89 aerial trucks
all must be scoured for embedded chips, which can be found in carbon
dioxide detectors, defibrillators and even the trucks themselves.

"Fire ladders are a huge thing we will focus on," Fieweger said.

Hospitals, too, are finding their hands full with checking out
medical equipment. Even facilities that are ahead of others have much
work to do.

The University of Chicago Hospitals have found 8,600 medical devices
that must be checked for Y2K problems but still have to investigate
approximately two-thirds of those, hospital officials said.

So far, they know that about 50 devices have to be replaced,
including an intravenous pump that allows patients to administer
their own doses of pain medications, said Patricia Becker, who is
heading the hospital's Y2K efforts.

"Even with the massive effort that this is, we might miss one or two
things and so we are developing contingency plans," Becker said. "One
of our contingencies to think about is what to do if other hospitals
turn out to be non-functional. What are we going to do to take those
patients?"

Planes, trains, automobiles

At O'Hare International Airport, the hard work has been done on the
most critical systems, such as those that track operations of runway
lights. Technicians have determined which systems might fail, and
work to repair them will begin later this month, according to
Aviation Commissioner Mary Rose Loney.

Already they know that ID badges airport employees use to open doors
would stop working next Jan. 1. Not only will the system have to be
updated, but 50,000 employees at O'Hare (and 10,000 at Midway
Airport) will be issued new badges in coming months.

In order to finish work on such critical systems, technicians have
had to delay checking less important ones, such as those that operate
lighting, heat and elevators in terminals.

Finishing work on those secondary systems could take until late in
the year. "But we are still targeting to complete the work by
December '99," said Dennis Culloton, a spokesman for Chicago's
Department of Aviation.

In the meantime, there is contingency planning, which aims to cover
even the smallest details.

"If the computer of our supply-chain vendor crashes on Jan. 1, we
won't get 2,000 rolls of toilet paper on Jan. 4," Culloton said. "In
that case, a truck driver would go out and manually purchase the
paper goods for our facilities."

The Federal Aviation Administration is now working on fixing the 430
critical systems that guide airplanes around the country. The agency
plans on fixing these systems at O'Hare and other airports before
July, according to an FAA spokesman.

But even this is months later than the General Accounting Office,
which is monitoring federal readiness, had hoped.

"The criticism that we got off to a late start is justified," said
Paul Takemoto, a spokesman for the FAA. "We didn't have a centralized
Y2K office in place until Feb. 4, 1998. (But) we have caught up to
where we need to be."

On the ground, there are still questions about what needs fixing to
keep the transportation infrastructure running in 2000.

The Chicago Transit Authority expects to spend more than $10 million
ferreting out and correcting Y2K deficiencies, said Craig Lang, a
senior vice president who heads the agency's technology development
division.

But the final cost is still unknown, because technicians haven't
determined how deep the problems run on "L" trains, at maintenance
facilities, and in control systems on newer buses.

They do know that the bus fueling system has to be reprogrammed. But
they don't yet know whether the rail switches on the "L" and ground-
level grade-crossing systems that separate Brown Line trains and
automobiles will work.

Although it may be hard to convince commuters, there is an
unanticipated up-side to the fact that one-fourth of the CTA's nearly
2,000 buses still are operating beyond a recommended 12-year
lifespan: There's no Y2K Bug in those old machines because they have
no chips.

Traffic signals for automobiles, one of the most commonly cited Y2K
bugaboos, are in fact one of the least troublesome.

Virtually none of the 6,500 traffic lights in the area is controlled
by devices with known Y2K problems because they work on 24-hour
cycles, not on calendars, according to state and municipal officials.
In Chicago, the traffic signals are generally controlled by devices
so old they don't have microchips in them.

Instead, Y2K problems might be lurking in less expected places.

At least a dozen of the movable bridges that cross the Chicago River
are controlled by microprocessors that could have a Y2K problem,
Fieweger said.

Officials expect to know by March whether equipment in the bridge
houses needs to be replaced.

Spreading the word

As project manager for the state's Y2K Technology Task Force, Randall
von Liski's job is to warn villages and cities that the Y2K problem
is real.

His seminars across the state have been only sparsely attended.

"The thing I'm most skeptical of is when somebody says, `It's taken
care of,' " he said. "You're not going to know if your community is
OK unless you start a project, and time is running out."

In November, the task force finished a survey of all 2,800 municipal,
township and county governments in Illinois, with troubling results.

Only 14 percent of the local government units even responded, and of
those that did:

- Only about one in four had a comprehensive plan for dealing with
the problem.

- Four said they would finish preparing for 2000 sometime after 2000.

- Only about one-third said they had contacted their suppliers to see
if they would be able to get goods or services in 2000.

"We're behind in the process," acknowledges Jennifer Swearingen, who
only started coming up with a Y2K plan for Oak Lawn in October.

She hopes to have her inventory of potential Y2K problems completed
by the end of January. "Then I'll move to triage," she said.

In North Chicago, officials plan to spend about $200,000 to replace
an aging mainframe computer and a computerized water control system.

But while attention there has been focused on the city's large
systems and PCs, no one has started hunting for embedded chips. No
overall inventory has been made. No priority list has been written.

"We're not going to develop any fallout shelters regarding Y2K," said
former city administrator Gerald Smith. "I think people are
overplaying it."

In Will County's DuPage Township, however, Joe Haines is nervous
enough at only just getting started on the Y2K problem that he's
created a two-page list with 45 items of every possible electronic
device contained in the township's main building, its senior center
and its road and bridge building.

The list starts with the computer used to cut about 30 general
assistance checks each month and even includes the automatic sliding
door into the senior center.

"Do they have awareness? I don't really think so," he said of the
officials who control the purse strings. "It's a tough argument. We
have to convince them they have to spend money just to keep it the
same."

In DuPage County, emergency management officials are preparing for
the worst, although they don't expect it.

They are recruiting ham radio operators to form a communications
chain if telephones fail, finding shelters that have generators and
offering training sessions to families to make them self-sufficient
for 72 hours after a disaster.

Sara: Not a report, yet nevertheless compelling - a list of actual Y2K
failures that have happened already, for anyone who says "I want proof
that Y2K is real". Take a quick look. Maybe you can use it, if not
now, then sometime in the future. Good Luck, Rob

Hi,Sara. Remember the movie "Terminator"? the heroine reaches a point
where she has to "make herself belive it" (about being chased by a
cyborg from the future),In your presentation ask yourself will this
produce a feeling of "I guess i have to belive it" in your business
leaders. What would it take? "Imagine a bell curve containing
`everything` world-wide in scope,moving from left to right the
`failure to work`(in the most fundamental sense). Goes from very high
on the left, to on the extreme right no impact at all. At a point in
time the `items` on the extreme left fail completely,At the same
point,`items slightly to right fail to a lesser extent etc. etc. Now
at this point we have a given amount of failures,These failures will
culumatively impact all vulnerabilities. From the extreme left
(making complete failures even more complete)to the extreme right
making perfectly healthy `items` slightly more vulnerable to the next
`point in time` obviously at some point the items on the chart will
start to `get healthy`. To emphasize *ALL* `items` that would have
just barely avoided complete failure at point A, now fail completely
at point B. Continue this process for the entire year 2000.

Thank you, one and all. I found many useful ideas and reports in your
suggestions. Thanks for the moral support as well. I will let you
know how it goes (this Friday). Hopefully, the Senate Report due out
today will be the most persuasive report to date

I think we will be using a version of your approach, Robert, in the
opening presentation. And Rob, the Y2K failures list, is a brilliant
addition.

Yes, Arnie, I had planned to include the Willamsen GAO Report. It is
compelling, as are the two nespaper articles I have settled on: the
Washington Post article of 2/24 and the Chicago Tribune article you
submitted for consideration, Kevin, thank you.

Tim, these guys already read the Vanity Fair article, so I am hoping
that has created an opening for receptivity.

You're a life-saver! I printed out the U.S. News article, which
included the jist of the Senate report due out Tuesday. The article
will do exactly what is needed for the preliminary meeting today. I
got your post 5 minutes before we had to leave!

Imagine how silly Paul Milne will feel if the year 2000 comes and
goes without catastrophe. Milne, like millions of other Americans, is
deeply alarmed by all the predictions that the turn of the century
will discombobulate the computer networks upon which civilization now
depends. Determined to protect his family from the so-called
millennial bug, Milne, formerly a New York commodities trader, is now
holed up on a 10-acre farm near Lynchburg, Va., where he and his
family have learned how to butcher cattle and grind their own flour.
To protect his hoard, he has bought a half-dozen or so AK-47 rifles,
the first guns he has ever owned. He even built a bunkhouse to billet
the gun-toting farmhands he anticipates he may need to patrol his
farm's perimeter. "We're not survivalist nut cases," he insists. The
threat of hungry scavengers will be so real, he argues, that, "If you
live within 5 miles of a 7-Eleven, you're toast."

It's easy to dismiss Milne and folks like him as wackos. But this
week brings official validation of at least some of their fears. On
Tuesday, the U.S. Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000
Technology Problem is expected to release its final report on the
economic and social consequences of Y2K, as the millennial bug is
also known. The report's conclusions are startling, even going so far
as to urge Americans to stockpile at least small amounts of food and
water to protect against expected brownouts. People are also advised
to save all their financial statements. In a draft copy of the report
obtained by U.S. News, committee chairmen Robert Bennett and
Christopher Dodd predict that the breakdown of computer networks
unable to process 21st-century dates will be "one of the most serious
and potentially devastating events this nation has ever encountered."
Using a word that is bound to reverberate with some fundamentalist
Christians who believe the millennial bug is a harbinger of the anti-
Christ, Bennett and Dodd characterize the Y2K glitch as "diabolical."

New Year's dissolution. So how will the devil do his work? Don't
expect planes to start falling out of the sky on New Year's Day. But
the Y2K problem will most likely cause some people to die, while also
causing serious disruption to the economy. Among the report's
specific findings:

The health care sector is woefully unprepared to cope with Y2K
problems, which could affect not only patient health records and
billing systems but also the functioning of biomedical devices such
as X-ray machines and infusion pumps used in operating rooms. Yet an
estimated 64 percent of hospitals and 90 percent of doctors' offices
have no plans to test for vulnerability to the millennial bug.

As of December 1998, only about 50 percent of utilities had completed
efforts to safeguard themselves from the millennial bug. As a result,
failure of some parts of the electric industry's system is likely,
even if a prolonged nationwide blackout is not. Of particular concern
is the possibility that power failures will disrupt local sewer
treatment plants.

Transportation systems are also vulnerable. The report debunks
predictions that the millennial bug will cause rail accidents, with
switches sending trains on the wrong track. But it does chastise the
Federal Aviation Administration for being behind in its preparations
for Y2K and warns that because airports, especially those abroad, are
also unprepared, flight rationing and cancellations, particularly on
routes with foreign destinations, are "highly possible." Meanwhile,
because the maritime industry has not moved aggressively to inoculate
its own computer systems, "disruptions to global trade are highly
likely."

Cash stash. The Social Security Administration gets high marks for
its early efforts to contain the millennial bug, but people who
depend on checks from other government agencies may want to keep some
extra cash on hand. The report singles out the Health Care Financing
Administration, which oversees Medicare disbursements, as
particularly unprepared for postmillennial operations. It also
expresses "serious concern" about the readiness of state and local
governments, including their ability to properly process welfare,
unemployment insurance, and Medicaid payments.

The people paying for those benefits may learn to hate the millennial
bug as well. The General Accounting Office told Congress last week
that the Internal Revenue Service is also behind in its remediation
efforts, and that as a result millions of taxpayers could be sent
erroneous tax notices or face delays in getting refunds.

Even if the checks do go out on time, with the right amounts and
addresses, there is reason to worry about whether the post office can
deliver them. The GAO also testified that the problems presented by
the millennial bug to the U.S. Postal Service are "among the most
complex of the public entities we have examined."

So who, if anyone, stands to gain from the millennial bug? Why, the
lawyers, of course. The committee notes that once Americans are all
done suing one another for all the lost checks, missing bank records,
late deliveries, and botched operations, legal judgments could go as
high as $1 trillion. So have a happy new year, and see you in court.